jjb919

So my fiance just landed a nice promotion and raise (yay!). However this comes with a commitment on her part to stay in this new position for at least two years. This limits my options for graduate school to our immediate geographical area, in other words Fordham or Columbia (which I don't expect to be admitted to), and maaaaaaybe Stony Brook, but that would be a bitch of a commute. I could put off applying for another year or two. None of the preparation I will have done so far will go to waste, and there may even be some benefits to holding off a year, but I know that if I do my fiance's very strong preference will be to stay in NYC, and it will be a very hard sell to make the move to DC, or Chicago, or Toronto. And I think a cross-country move would be out of the question (knocking my top choice program, U. Oregon, out of the question). She has worked extraordinarily hard for years to get to her current position, and she is now on the verge of being in a place where she can save a significant amount to settle down and start a family. Moving to take a chance on a PhD program, which comes with large opportunity costs on my end and results in her having to support us during my studies (potentially in a city in which she is unable to find a decent job) seems to be, in my mind, a very selfish thing to ask her to do. I'm not sure what to do at the moment. Do I take my chances and just apply to NYC schools? Do I hold off a year or two, apply to all the schools on my list, see where the chips fall, and try to convince her to move should I get into an excellent program further away? What do people think?

Yeah, I hear you on that. It's become a very complex and multifaceted situation, but the more I read the more I gravitate toward the position that while there are certainly some climate issues that need to be addressed, the problems are really isolated to a small number of the faculty and the department at large was hard done by the APA report. Plus, with other misconduct issues popping up in other philosophy programs, like Miami and Northwestern, I don't expect to see graduates of Colorado unduly 'punished' on the job market more than other programs. Thanks, I will definitely look into that! However, I think I'll be facing an impossible battle trying to convince my wife to move that far south if I were to get in!

The University of Colorado Boulder also is strong in applied ethics, and they should be accepting graduate students again this year. Have you looked into applying there?

Some departments make a point of asking prospective applicants not to contact them until they are admitted (Chicago, for instance, mentions on their website that contacting professors and coming for a visit before being admitted is a waste of time; professors likely don't have time to meet with you, will not remember you, and your conversation will have no bearing on your application). That being said, I did contact a POI whose work is very closely aligned with my research interests, and I happened to be in that part of the country on vacation anyway. He was very receptive and we had a great 1.5 hour talk. He told me about the department, its philosophical approach, its pros and cons, the success of its graduates, his work, where my work could intersect, and so on. It was a great experience, but it is not something I would say is par for the course or even widely appreciated by faculty. And when I have written to POIs, it has not been to ask for any kind of assistance with my application materials. The most I would ask is if they would be willing to meet and discuss more of the details of the department and if I would be a good fit there. And as surefire mentioned above, if you can find the information elsewhere, don't contact the POI about it. It makes it look like you haven't done your homework.

Sartre, Iris Murdoch, Bernard Williams

Yeah, reality is a bitch. I know I've talked to you about one of your prospective schools, but several of the others you listed in your first post are, from what information I could glean thus far, really great. I'll be applying to them myself. Every department is going to have its pitfalls; you just need to set certain priorities and not budge on those. Unfortunately some schools will not live up to those standards and will be winnowed. In my opinion, the number one priority is funding; only enroll in schools that will fully fund you for the duration of your studies. The second priority in my mind is locating professor(s) who have research interests closely matching yours, and could therefore serve as a strong advisor and mentor. Preferably more than one, so that your existence at the school isn't dependent on just him or her. Preferably a tenured professor, but also not one that is too senior and either on the way out or who will be too far removed from the profession to be of much help come job hunting season. The third priority, I think, is placement, but I say this with a big grain of salt. You have to ask yourself what kind of job you really want. If you are find going off the academic track, then maybe placement record isn't that important in the end. If you are set on the ivory tower, then what kind of academic job are you looking for, and where? Do you want to work at a teaching institution or a research institution? If the former, then some schools that might seem to have "poorer" placement records might not seem that bad after all. If the latter, you may want to set your sights on getting into the 'big gun' schools, and even then chances aren't excellent. Do you want to work at a SLAC that focuses on undergraduate education? Elite SLACs, on the other hand, regularly higher from the big name schools. Are you comfortable with the idea of teaching at a community college? Answers to all of these questions will have an influence on how seriously you take placement records. After that, what else is important to you? Are you looking for a high level of collegiality and contact with your graduate cohort? Do you prize regular and close interaction with your advisors? Are you looking for a department that is a hub of activity that hosts lots of talks, conferences, and workshops? These can be helpful guides to figuring out which schools are the best fit for you. And as Billy said, you're doing your homework and that is great. Puts you ahead of the curve and in a much better position to make the best choice come April.

I am going to be applying to programs this fall. At the moment I am preparing for the GRE, which I will take in September. I have a pretty solid writing sample; it is a more concise and much improved version of my MA thesis that I have been working on for about a year now. It is currently being reviewed by a journal and while I wait I am focusing on other things. Other than that I am just reading widely, trying to fill some gaps that I never got the chance to cover while in school (pragmatism, Nietzsche, Foucault, more German Idealism).

Length is not an indicator of quality. In fact, if you can make the same point in less pages that is preferable and more powerful. All my whining about not being able to cut down my WP is just that. Every time I go back to it and just it a little more, streamline it a little more, it comes out better. Don't sell yourself short just because your writing sample isn't long (of course, it needs to me long enough to deal seriously and deeply with an issue, but that is possible in 10-15 pages). Take a step back, figure out what you're really trying to say (and this is a hard thing to uncover; it can take many drafts and many conversations with your teachers where they challenge you and criticize your arguments), and write it as concisely as possible. Ad coms would much rather read a solid 10 page paper than one that says the same thing put takes 25 pages to do it.

These are some great suggestions, thank you guys! I'll be sure to look into them. @Nastasya_Filippovna, looks like we are applying to many of the same schools! I wish you the best, and hopefully we'll see each other at a couple accepted student visits!

That's excellent to hear! Where are you thinking of applying? My exposure to embodied cognition is still relatively recent and so far I have mostly read the work of Shaun Gallagher, Dan Zahavi, Evan Thompson, and Mark Johnson.

I'm in the same boat as Nastasya-Filippovna. I have been working hard to rework and narrow down my MA thesis and I'm currently at 27 pages. I'm continuing to work on it and think I can get it down another 1-2 pages, but I think that's as far as I can go without sacrificing important pieces of my argument. Some of the schools I'm applying to have no word/page limit, which is nice, while others have ostensibly hard limits. I don't think my paper will be grossly over those limits, and I don't think my application will be thrown out solely because of the fact that it is over those limits (seems unreasonable, but of course I don't know the details of some departments' admissions practices), so I don't plan on going through a large amount of headache editing my WS further to meet all of the individual limits. I'll get it as short, concise, and sharp as I can and then I'll send it. If some adcoms stop reading after 6,000 words, or 15, 20 pages then so be it. If I've done a good enough job, hopefully they'll want to keep reading!

That is excellent!

I think Weltgeist is right in that it depends on the content of your paper. If it deals with a really difficult text--or section of a text--especially one without a great deal of influential secondary literature, then you can do a close textual analysis without needing to pay homage to much of that literature. Other than that, though, I think it is a good idea to show you are aware of the ongoing debate among philosophers regarding your topic; what the dominant interpretations are, why they are right/wrong, and where you fit in. This is definitely something that was stressed in my MA program--professors expected you to discuss at least some secondary literature in your term papers. While I don't think it is a benchmark adcoms expect you to meet, I do think that the better writing samples will incorporate the secondary lit (with the above caveat).

Most often I like to put on my Clint Mansell Pandora station, but I also sometimes like listening to classical (my favorite is Tchaikovsky's 4th), and occasionally metal.

I think it is smarter to err on the side of clear (but predictable). Avoid taking (organizational) risks in your writing sample. You will have plenty of time in grad school to experiment and find your writing style and hone your skills to be both clear and also display an interesting narrative. The best thing you can do to impress the adcom into accepting you is to show them that you can write clearly about a topic, with sufficient depth. If your readers can easily understand where you're coming from, why the opposition view is a problem, how you got there, and where you might be going with your argument, you are on the right track. You need to show them you can do the fundamentals; if that gets in any way obscured in your pursuit of an interesting paper structure then they will be much more likely to drop you. That being said, I think there are ways you can write that evince a clear and easy to follow structure without using tedious transitions (such as "and now I will present my first criticism of the opposition view..." or "and now I will attempt to show why this objection to my criticism does not hold water...").

Thanks, Hopephily, that's good to know.

Thanks! Yeah, I've been doing a bit of research and found that document I think you're referring to on Andrew Cullison's blog: http://www.andrewcullison.com/journal-surveys/ I've pinpointed a few journals that I think would be sympathetic to my topic, style of writing, not too out of reach, and which have quick turnaround time and reasonable time to publication. So theoretically it is possible to be accepted for publication by the time I submit my application, but that would require my paper to be accepted by the first or second journal I submit to, which is quite a long shot to say the least.

Undergrad: I went to a well-known but not elite SLAC. I double-majored in philosophy and music, did very well in my classes (GPA 3.9), and wrote a senior thesis. I was shut out of grad school first time around; I didn't start thinking about it until late in the season and didn't do enough research or seek enough guidance to help prepare me so it's no surprise. I took a year off and worked at a call center for an e-commerce company. Applied the second time and was admitted to a master's program. Grad: I completed my MA requirements in Fall 2013 with a strong GPA (3.97), and have been revising and polishing a truncated version of my thesis to use as my writing sample. Currently working full time at an excellent non-profit. Other: I took the GRE back in 2009 and did pretty mediocre; I'm going to start preparing in earnest this summer and take it in the fall. I won a graduate student essay competition in 2012 and the paper is supposed to be published, but the press is pretty backed up so I have no clue when it will appear. I will be presenting my shortened MA thesis at a conference this weekend (my first one!), and afterward will probably try my luck at submitting it to journals for publication. It's extremely unlikely that it would even be reviewed (let alone accepted) in time to make any difference in my application, but that's not really the purpose anyway, is it? Interests: mostly in ethics, specifically virtue ethics and the intersection with embodiment/embodied cognition. I'm also very interested in recognition theory, German Idealism, and phenomenology (although I must admit, as much as I have studied it I only have a foggy idea of what it's about).

I haven't read it myself. I had just recently heard about it so it came to mind. I should probably do more research before I open my mouth, haha.

The introductory text to philosophy that I used as an undergrad was "Thinking it Through" by Kwame Anthony Appiah. Each chapter focuses on a different area of philosophy, and is further broken down by major views and movements within each area and the central thinkers who champion them. It's a really good introduction, but it is structured like a text-book so if your brother is anti-philosophy to begin with he may not warm up to it. Another good introduction is Simon Blackburn's "Think". If your brother likes reading literature there are several big names that deal with philosophical issues in their writings, particularly short stories. Names that come to mind are Borges, Kafka, Sartre. Since he is into math, Janna Levin's book "A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines" is a fictional novel about Goedel and Turing that deals with some philosophical themes.

This is excellent advice; when I asked my advisor to write me a letter of recommendation she told me to remind her when the time came closer with a packet of information: what classes I took with her, my term papers for those classes, my thesis, a list of academic achievements, conferences attended, a copy of my statement of purpose, etc. It is important for your letter writers to be on the same page with the way you present yourself, and the more information you give your letter writers, the more substantive recommendations they can write. Letters that say little more than "X was in my class ___. S/he did well." can be killers.

I started seriously thinking about PhD applications toward the end of the first year of my MA program. I started talking to faculty I built relationships with to get advice on the best way to navigate my second year. I spent my second year taking classes that I knew would adequately prepare me to tackle the thesis I wanted to write. I had been advised to use my thesis as my writing sample. After defending, I worked on cutting down my thesis to an article-length paper while incorporating the comments from my committee. I sent the paper to conferences, and will be presenting it later this month, where I hope to get more feedback. After editing it some more, I may send it to a journal or two and see what comments I get back. Another round or two of revisions and I hope to have a nicely polished writing sample in time for application deadlines next year. All the while, I looked deeply into many different programs. I made spreadsheets to compare faculty interests, average funding packages, placement records, teaching opportunities and resources, admission stats, and application deadlines and requirements. I looked at 24 different programs, and by combing through these dimensions of each program, and keeping in mind my financial limitations, I narrowed that list down to the 8 programs I will apply to. I just started crafting a generic SOP that focuses on my three main inter-related areas of interest (which are all touched on in my writing sample), and as time goes on I will tailor this to each department, noting corresponding areas of strength and, if there is a strong overlap, noting specific professors I am interested in working with (I won't be doing this for all schools. It is a tactic that can blow up in your face if you mis-characterize the research interests of the professor; but there are some schools that have professors with very strong and obvious connections to my areas of interest and in these instances I think it's a good idea to make note of that). I plan on spending the summer studying for the GRE, and taking that in the early fall. At that point I'll notify the professors with whom I've maintained a relationship and ask for letters of recommendation. I developed relationships with these professors late in my first year/early in my second year. I took their classes, I went to their office hours, I spoke with them about term paper ideas, and asked for advice regarding whether I should go on to the PhD at all, and, once I decided that I eventually would, on what programs would be a good fit for me and would be within my reach. They served on my committee so they are familiar with the work I will be presenting to the adcoms. In the end, I think your application materials should provide different views of the same story. It will be a red flag if what you state as your AOI in your SOP doesn't match up with what your letter writers state as your AOI, or if your WS is not on one of those topics, or if your AOI don't match the strength of the school. All of this may be obvious, but it is important to step back and think about the image you present to the adcom. Sorry if this got preachy.

Yeah, Oregon has a great department. I was attracted to it because of the work Mark Johnson has done on embodied cognition and metaphor theory, which has many parallels to the work I've been doing recently on the body and morality. I also really like the work their new hire Mark Alfano has done on virtue ethics. So many talented people in that department, working on such varied topics, it seems like a really exciting place to be.

sar1906: I got through the program by taking out loans to pay for tuition and fees, and juggling a couple of part time jobs to pay for living expenses. I was given a 33% scholarship and took it with the hope that I could get more funding my second year if I showed academic excellence. The hardest thing at NSSR is to get more funding as a second year MA student. After two years of the program, I ended up taking out nearly $50,000 in loans, and again that was just to cover tuition and fees. Most students I knew also took out loans to cover living expenses. Because I worked to cover the cost of living, I unfortunately was not very active in department life outside of class, which was regrettable. For what it's worth, I am taking my MA thesis, paring it down to an article sized paper, presenting it at a conference later this month, work-shopping it more, (maybe even try my luck at publishing it), and then using the resulting polished paper as my writing sample. The topic is on attempting to show the moral status of the body, and suggesting some consequences this has for moral reason. One of the most sound pieces of advice I got from one of my mentors was to take my thesis, and taking a year to re-write and re-write and re-write it. Look at the papers you have written for one of your philosophy classes and find one you still feel strongly about (and ideally one which you did well on), one in which you feel you have something to say. Then spend a ton of time polishing it. Present it to people, make a 30-second elevator pitch; this will force you to concisely locate your central idea and present it as clearly as possible, and then present that idea as early in the paper as possible. Make sure your reader can follow you every step of the way, and could even anticipate where you are going. Ideally, find a professor you had/have a relationship with and have him/her critique it. Several times. Also find a friend whose judgment and insight you trust, and have them read it and critique it, to ensure clarity and accessibility (not everyone on the adcom will be familiar with your AOS). Take your time with the paper, let it sit with you, let the ideas marinate and mature. Ideally, your writing sample should be related to your proposed AOS. It may seem obvious, but this will go some way toward giving the adcom a detailed sense of your interests and your philosophical chops in those areas, as well as how well-equipped their department is to guide you in working on those issues. If you really feel that your strongest paper is in an area that is not your primary interest, it may be good to note reasons why you chose that particular paper in your personal statement.

If you have any questions about the department, funding, culture, feel free to ask or send me a message. I think The New School has helped me immensely in my philosophical development, refining my writing and my interests, and has made me much more competitive in grad applications than I would have been if I had applied right out of undergrad (we'll see just how competitve this time next year).